Do you need goals, plans or a strategy?

Imagine you live in the middle ages. It’s been a hard Winter and the food has run out in your village.

A bunch of responsible folk get together to decide what to do.

You may hope that Spring will come early but, as we all know, hope is not a strategy.

The group decides that the best course of action is to go deer hunting. As you are stalking a deer you notice a rabbit that would be a much easier kill and would feed your family for a week. Killing the rabbit would spook the deer.

Hope is not a strategy.

What do you do?

Phil Jones, author of “Communicating Strategy” used this story to open his presentation.

If the goal is to feed the village and the strategyis to do this by bringing home a deer carcass, the planning process will encompass all the elements of making this happen.

The planis how we decide to execute the strategy.

Therefore, the plan itself isn’t important, but the process of planning makes carrying out the strategy easy.

Some people argue that if you have a vision that excites you enough, you don’t need goals, plans or strategies. This may be true of a single person pursuing their vision but there are lots of examples of small businesses taking on jobs to bring in immediate cash that distract them from the long term goals.

The process of planning makes carrying out the strategy easy.

Whenever more than one person is involved, the strategy and, more importantly, how that strategy is communicated, becomes very important. The goal of the team, or in this case, the village, may be at odds with the goal of the individual and could result in lots of rabbits being chased at the expense of the organisation as a whole.

If you’re tired of chasing rabbits and you’d like to talk about how to set your goals and plan your strategy to grow your business,get in touch!

Self belief is a major factor in becoming successful.

Many of the people I mentor have all the talent they need to be successful but suffer from a lack of self belief and confidence.

This stops them from even trying to get what they want.

Achieving anything is mostly about simply doing the right things at the right time

Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’ll prove yourself right”. Our thoughts are so powerful that they influence everything we do.

Do you believe you can get what you want?

If not, what are the thoughts that are holding you back?

The first step to working on a lack of self belief or self confidence is to acknowledge that you have them.

The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on.

All other things being equal, self-belief is often the single ingredient that distinguishes a successful person from someone less successful – because they believe that if they try something and fail, it’s not the end of the world and they can always try doing it a different way or try something else.

They don’t think “why me?” they think “why not me?”

What do you think?

If you’d like to talk about how to achieve more of what you want, get in touch!